Jack Davis
2025-11-06
Let’s look at two case studies:
Case study 1: Twenty20 cricket.
Twenty20 cricket, named so because there are only 20 six-ball overs thrown per side, was just emerging as a professionally played format of cricket in 2005-2010. It can be played in 3 hours instead of 8 hours (one-day) or 5 days (test).
The analysis of this new format had not yet caught up to its populatity, so meaningful gains were available. (Specifically, people were playing it as if it was similar to the longer one-day format of 50 overs per side)
Data recording had already been established on ESPN’s cricinfo website for cricket games in other formats going back decades. T20 games were recorded in the same structured natural language play-by-play format.
In short, there was available data, an audience, and an opportunity to make an impact on the field without a huge amount of expertise. Two later, we had a stack of published papers on Twenty20.
Case study 2: Horse racing
Horse racing is a long-established spectator sport that had changed very little in the last 50 years. Evne the introduction of Tapeta artificial turf hasn’t changed much because many venues keep the same ground they always have for either budgetary or traditional reasons.
Data is available through the Daily Racing Form, but it’s in a format that takes a lot of effort to parse. It’s also $100/month for full access.
Lots of analysis has been done by betting factions, but because of the stock-market-like nature of betting on horses, most of the analysis done is not publicly available. (As a contrast, Poker is has lots of books, coaching, and tools available for a fee. Another case where information has obvious monetary value.)
Horse racing is in a slow decline (cite economics paper), globally over the last few decades. Locally, with the exception of the special events like King’s Plate (Woodbine Raceway, Toronto), or the Battle of Waterloo (Grand River Raceway, Elora), seats at races are left empty and telcase viewership is down.
The result has been a research dead end. Multiple interesting angles have been explored, but there’s a lot of uncertainty about whether the work is novel, and whether its publication will be impactful (i.e., well-received and well-cited).
To quote “An Industry in Decline: Can U.S. Horse Racing Turn the Corner?” David Lynn Hoffman, Debora J. Gilliard, Sally Baalbaki-Yassine, all Metropolitan State University of Denver
Horse tracks once were at the height of their popularity when it was one of the few options for disposable income and use of leisure time. However, horse tracks have declined in popularity, have seen decreased revenue, an aging target market, and are less attractive to younger generations who are tethered to their cell phones. Given the increasing regulation, market trends, and decreasing revenues can the industry turn the corner to a better home stretch?
It’s not just about the popularity of the sport, but also the data availability and the amount of wok that has already been established.
For example, baseball is pretty popular, but if your goal was to make a name for yourself, I wouldn’t start with baseball unless you have a really unique angle like video essays about specific players. There just isn’t any easy, high importance, analysis left to do in baseball.
So let’s consider sports that are newly popular, or soon to be popular, and see what data is available for analysis from them.
Volleyball is growing in popularity, and US pro volleyball has just seen a merger between the Volleyball Federation and Major League Volleyball. Several sources state the value of the merged leagues to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, but don’t clarify where that value comes from.
https://provolleyball.com/news/2025/08/volleyball-leagues-announce-historic-plan-the-new-mlv
“In a landmark move for the sport, Pro Volleyball Federation (PVF) and Major League Volleyball have announced plans for a single, united league poised to elevate professional women’s volleyball in the United States. The unified league will be branded as MLV.”
English Premier League Football is another example of a great success story. (Ideas summarized from The Club: How the English Premier League Became the Wildest, Richest, Most Disruptive Force in Sports, by Joshua Robinson and Jonathan Clegg)
Cultural backing matters, as well as the ability to make stories - In the premier league, soccer started off being popular to read about in print. Is it that stories spread?
Expericing the game has to be safe and enjoyable.
1980’s hooliganism was a sign of sporting decline.
It was a real bad, cheap product in the 1980’s. In 1985, there was a fire (56 dead) and a riot (39 dead) at English football matches.
1992’s premier league was modelled after the US NFL.
Deini on the NFL: “I understood that was how a sport should be run. The way they marketed it - it was more than minety minutes of football, it was a n event. THis was a family sport, good outlets, you could get a decent meal. Even the toilets were good.”
Consider also: Seattle had a baseball team before the Mariners very briefly, and their stadium had inadequate toilets. Also, Vegas Golden Knights really made a show of hte game with a pre-game show, and that was part of their success according to marketing expert Terry O’Rielly on his podcast “Under the Influence”.
Sports are an entertainment business. Specifically, you’re selling heroes.
Before the establishment of the Premier League, “live TV was seen as a drag on ticket sales”. Consider that with blackout regions for TV today.
So what other sports are rising stars?
Recently we’ve seen pickleball rise in popularity first as a participant sport, and secondly as a professional spectator sport.
After a few false starts, women’s hockey, through the PWHL, is growing fast.
One factor these two have in common with other sports that grew quickly in popularity is accessible viewership. Both pickleball (pickletv.com) and the PWHL (CBC Gem) have free streaming options with announcers to support and explain the action.
Other factors of accessible viewership include:
TV viewership is still a big deal because sports take up the lion’s share of appointment television. (See the The Formula and The Club for details on TV contracts)
Some other factors that indicate or drive sport popularity include…
Availability of required infrastructure. Pickleball and volleyball are playable on existing multisport courts. Women’s hockey can use the same arenas as men’s hockey.
Investment in new infrasturture. (e.g., look for news on new courts being built)
Merchandise sales. (e.g., are there cards being bought and sold? Jerseys? Specialty toothpaste?)
Viewership numbers. These are often advertized by rising leagues to attract sponsors. Look for live viewership via streaming, as well as view counts from short form / highlight content, live in-person attendance, and social media engagement numbers on official representative accounts of teams/leagues/sporting bodies, as well as superstars’ accounts.
Diveristy in interest, especially under 30.
For example, the WNBA has just signed a 10-year TV deal with NBC through Disney. (https://www.wnba.com/news/media-rights-deal-disney-prime-nbc), which effectively guarantees media coverage of games, commentary, and highlights until 2036.
Another Kingmaker is Qatar Sports Investments (QSI), which purchased a controlling stake in Paris Saint-Germain in 2011, as well as a controlling stake in Premier Padel in 2022 and World Padel Tour in 2023. ( https://www.qsi.com.qa/portfolio/ )
Red Bull Sports has also had great success in its soccer team investments like RB Leipzig and the New York Red Bulls, as well as its Formula 1 team. Recently it has also partnered with Premier Padel ( https://www.redbull.com/int-en/events/fip-world-cup-pairs , https://www.redbullcontentpool.com/premierpadel ), as well as purchased the rugby team Newcastle Falcons ( https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/red-bull-expands-sports-portfolio-with-full-control-of-new-team )
Fenway Sports Group has expanded out from the Boston Red Sox to acquire and support mature sporting enterprizes like the Pittsburg Penguins, and the PGA Tour (Golf). ( https://fenwaysportsgroup.com/the-fsg-family/ )
Other multi-team or multi-sport groups to pay attention to:
So wat’s this about Padel (pronounced Pa-delle).
Padel is a sport like tennis, but with a small hard paddle instead of a large racket with strings.
The court is smaller, and most importantly, surrounded in glass walls. To hit the ball over ot the other side, players may bounce the ball off the walls, including the wall behind the player. Also, serving is done underarm, which is slower and easier to return.
Several reasons why I think Padel is a good candidate to learn about now to publish about in 2-3 years.
It’s easy to pick up and try, maybe even easier than pickleball. The serving is done underhand, which is not only easier to perform, but also slower and easier to return and get a rally going on.
It doesn’t take a lot of athletic condition to play at an enjoyable level (i.e., rallying).
The equipment requirements are modest and gener, allowing casual fans to try it without a major commitment.
The game is easy to understand for spectators.
There are already 30 million players worldwide ( https://www.bbc.com/sport/articles/crrlnlj8lrxo “The rise of padel and why it’s so popular”).
There is an emerging, regional profession league based in Spain and Italy.
On the other hand, a Padel court requires glass walls, which adds a barrier to court conversion from other sports. That doesn’t seem to be stopping facility adoption.
“In the United States, tennis and pickleball still deominate, but padel wants some of the action. Dozens of new facilities [are being built in the US]. (https://www.sportingnews.com/us/lifestyle/news/athletes-and-investors-fuel-rapid-rise-padel-worldwide%C2%A0/af661e43b8fc603b08d106d3 ) Athletes and investors fuel rapid rise of padel worldwide, by John Boitnott)
Padel has some emerging analytics groups, but they all seem to have something in common: a focus on getting the data from computer vision, with only light use of that data. For example, for measuring personal effort spent. These groups could really use more statistical muscle.
Examples include:
Padelyrtics, a six-person startup using computer vision to do padel analytics. Their current project is to develop a model for shot effectiveness. Their team has acouple of AI/ML specialists, but nobody from a stats or analytics background.
Padelize is similar, but uses your phone as the camera, instead of a dedicated camera. It’s in early access as an app.
Padel Stats (stats.padel.ac) gives rankings and such for the Qatar Airways Permier Padel league (based in Spain).
Another way to get a sense of what is emerging in sports (and anything else commercial) is to copy the homework of the people that are paid to do this. In this case, we can look to experts in sponsorship opportunities.
Consider
“Padel: The sponsorship goldmine you might be overlooking” (Sean Connell, https://www.thesponsor.com/padel-the-sponsorship-goldmine-you-might-be-overlooking/ )
Which claims the following.
“Despite its commercial infancy, the sport has all the attributes brands look for in a sponsorship property.”
Plus: Strong local following in Thailand and some following Brazil.
Plus: Good for live, streamed, and short form.
Plus: Soccer skills transfer over, allowing lots of people to jump into an otherwise difficult sport.
Plus: Exciting and easy to follow action.
Minus: A specialized, curved table is needed.
Minus: Getting to a playable level requires a lot of soccer ball control that most laypeople would take a long time to develop.
Plus: Great video content, very video-game like.
Plus: Drones are getting cheaper and more developed.
Plus: A wide variety of venues can be used to host a drone race, as opposed to a car, horse, or foot race which requires a dedicated track.
Plus: Lots of drone telemetry statistics can be made available for analysis.
Minus: For safety reasons, a large, empty venue is required.
Flag football kept coming up in my research, but I just don’t see it happening as a major thing. it’s too similar to gridiron football without the kick.
eSports also came up a lot, but that’s been established for a while.
I would love to tackle pool/billiards/snooker as well as darts, but unless there’s a push for third spaces, I don’t see it being worth it.
You are an expert in the economics of sports and sporting events which are popular in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia. You also have some training in sports analytics, and know about available data sources for sports. Tell me some of the factors that are leading indicators of the success and popularity of sports. In particular, tell me what leagues and sports have risen in popularity over the last 3-5 years, and tell me what factors related to economics, spectatorship, and participation all or most of these leagues and sports have in common.
Can you tell me any emerging sports that are similar to padel in theri potential for sponsorship and analytics development?
What are some other kingmaker sports groups that purchase and support teams and leagues? I'm talking about groups besides disney, qatar sports investments, red bull sports, and fenway sports group?